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The Boys Star Doesn't Want To See Homelander Redeemed
Antony Starr opens up about Homelander's chances of not only surviving Billy Butcher and company, but also being redeemed in Prime Video's The Boys.

The Boys Star Doesn't Want To See Homelander Redeemed

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for The Boys season 3.

Antony Starr, who plays Homelander on The Boys, doesn’t think his tyrannical supe can nor should be redeemed. Inspired by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s source material, Prime Video’s The Boys has turned several superhero and comic book tropes on their heads. The series takes place in a world where “supes” abuse their celebrity status and engage in reckless behavior enabled by powerful corporations like Vought International, which is famous for founding superhero teams ala The Seven, a group led by a twisted version of DC’s Superman.

Homelander’s origin in The Boys is that of Superman had the Man of Steel been raised by a corporation rather than Jonathan and Martha Kent. Having endured the life of a lab rat since birth, Homelander craves the public’s admiration while simultaneously believing himself to be superior to everyone around him. With almost unlimited power, he really can do “whatever the f—k he wants” as he seems to revel in murder and mayhem behind closed doors. However, throughout The Boys’ first couple seasons, there have been signs that Homelander might not be a complete monster. Now, Homelander himself has weighed in on whether or not he could be redeemed.

In a recent interview with Collider, Starr discusses Homelander’s arc in The Boys season 3 and a potential happy ending for his character. When asked whether Homelander’s comics fate (death) is avoidable, Starr says he doesn’t think redemption is in the cards. Read what he had to say below:

 “I think Homelander’s happy ending would be him annihilating everyone in the world and sitting there in a bloody wasteland on his own, with no one to mess with him. I don’t think there’s a redemption story for Homelander. I wouldn’t really wanna see that, to be honest. I don’t think there’s any intention of doing that either. As for his demise, I don’t know. Every time I try to pick out what might happen in the future, I’m wrong, so I’ve given up speculating. I’m just like, “You know what? I’ll leave that for the writers and spare myself the embarrassment of being wrong, again and again and again.”

Starr’s idea that Homelander would be happy “annihilating everyone in the world” has been explored in The Boys, albeit as a last result. Queen Maeve blackmails Homelander in season 2 with that incriminating plane crash video. Homelander informs her that he will “destroy everything and everyone” if she releases it, to which she replies, “As long as no one ever loves you again.” Given that this results in him leaving The Boys’ real “heroes” alone, this moment cements Homelander’s need for attention as his biggest weakness. Season 3 of the series has seen him embrace his god complex and become increasingly unhinged, defaulting to a preference of being feared if he can’t be loved. Still, The Boys’ writers have kept audiences guessing by never losing sight of his latent humanity or making him a one-note baddie.

In The Boys season 3’s “Herogasm” episode, Homelander talks to himself in a scene reminiscent of Norman Osborn’s exchanges with the Green Goblin in Spider-Man. The conversation reveals the duality of Homelander as an insecure child/victim of Vought versus a psychopath who equates his humanity to cancer. From the rape of Becca Butcher to countless murders (not to mention a forced suicide in “The Only Man in the Sky”), this is not to say Homelander can, or even deserves to be redeemed. In the comics, Homelander is essentially manipulated into believing he’s an evil person and, therefore, embraces the life of a villain. In the television series, he chooses it. Unless Soldier Boy’s newfound powers manage to burn the Compound-V out of his blood, The Boys has established Homelander as the show’s greatest threat. Starr’s instincts are likely correct: One of television’s most interesting (and terrifying) villains may have to die.